Eisenhower was in Newport, Rhode Island, prior to heading for a two-week hunting vacation in southern Georgia. On his way out of a church service in which he heard a sermon on the need for new civil rights laws, Ike shook hands with the Navy chaplain and said, “You can’t legislate morality.” News of this instantly famous comment crossed the ministers’ telegrams. Although it dismayed King, the remark provided him with the grist for numerous sermons about how the President misconstrued the essential function of law.
